Christian Zionism 101
DL and Krispin talk about Christian Zionism, The Left Behind Series, Dispensationalism and more!
Here's some resources we reference in this episode:
Left Behind: From Root to Ripened Fruit by Hank Hanegraaff (the Bible Answer Man).
John Darby's "End Times" by Chuck Hamilton
Asking, What Would Jesus Read? by Erin Smith
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TRANSCRIPT
Krispin_gate
DL: [00:00:00] Welcome to a special three part series. That we are interrupting our regular podcast season to do.
Krispin: DL, we have two episodes left.
DL: Of Recapping the Good Place. Yes,
Krispin: But they were like, “this is really important.” And I agree.
DL: We gotta do this now. We do podcasting wrong, and I you know, freely admit that.
So we are interrupting our season of recapping The Good Place called This is the Bad Place, and we are doing a three part series on Christian Zionism. And we're going back to our roots where, you know, we go through white evangelical American and pop cultural artifacts from the 80s and 90s. And there's a lot of those that deal with Christian Zionism.
And so, We're just doing it now. We're doing it now. And hopefully everybody knows why right now is an important time to talk about Christian Zionism and how it impacts global politics. What else do you want me to say?
Krispin: Well, I mean, you tried to talk about some of this in our Christian romance series, but it just didn't really like come together.
DL: But now is the time. Yes. Okay. So I've been trying to do a season on these books by Brock and Bodhi Tanney, They have written dozens and dozens of Christian romances that center around the themes of Zionism and they're very upfront about that. And we're going to dive into those books with a few special guests.
So we're not going to spend too much time talking about those, although, you know, spoiler alert, I think they're very important. There's a few other books we have to get to when it comes to Christian publishing and Zionism. And that's what you and I are going to talk about, but we're also going to talk a little bit about our personal experiences with Christian Zionism. So, anything else we need to say before we dive in?
Krispin: I am along for the ride. You came in here and you were like, there's so much I need to say and tell you about this. So [00:02:00] that's where we're
DL: I know. So I'm just a little worried about everything that's going to come out, um, but, you know, as we're recording this, right, this is actually, hey, happy new year, it's 2024, it's January 1st.
That's when we're recording this, obviously, um, Israel is in the midst of this brutal conflict. Against the Palestinian people, um, and we're watching them be. eradicated. And this is something that has been a part of Christian theology for a really long time, which is why I think it's so important to talk about today.
But, uh, just, you know, as we're here, uh, the beginning of 2024, I just want to say, like, at this point in Gaza, right, there have been at Almost 22, 000 people killed, almost 9, 000 of those people are children, there's 7, 000 people still missing, presumed dead, and almost 60, 000 people have been injured in Gaza.
Not only that, [00:03:00] but like, the entire infrastructure of that part of Palestine has now been just decimated, destroyed. So, that's kind of like Important to talk about what's happening right now because all of this has been sort of foretold by Christian Zionists, and this has always been their end goal, and I think that's a really sobering fact that we need to keep in mind as we talk about some of these pop cultural artifacts and milestones that people might have heard of before.
I just want to couch it in this like pretty devastating reality. So there we go.
Krispin: Yeah. Which is why we're talking about it now, why we are interrupting our regularly scheduled programming. Um, it's just super important.
DL: Okay, Krispin, what do you know about Christian Zionism, or were you raised with Zionism?
Or can you, um, tell us what Zionism is? I just want to put you on the spot.
Krispin: I know, I don't, [00:04:00] I know a little bit about it. I know sort of this idea of. Um, that, uh, something about Israel and the end times and Israel returning to their land and, um, so it's just sort of in the water, you know, I feel like it's sort of part of the Left Behind series. I remember something about 144, 000, you know, I wasn't quite clear on what that was, but I knew that there was a lot of, in my mind it was sort of lore, because, I know that sounds weird. Uh, but because I actually was in communities where some people took it very seriously and they were like, this is the third awakening, which means this is gonna happen. That's gonna happen. And then I also had people in my life that were like, this is just weird old theology that someone came up with 200 years ago.
That isn't really true. And so I did have a little bit of distance from it because of
DL: Okay. That makes sense. So it was just sort of in the water. You don't have like a lot of awareness of it.
So I was [00:05:00] raised by a Christian Zionist mom and she was super into it, super into the end times. Um, she had a lot of issues going on. My dad was an evangelical pastor. Both of them were really into, well, maybe not my dad so much, but he was sort of in like that Jesus movement in the You
Krispin: Mm-Hmm.
DL: 1970s in California, which we've talked about on this podcast before, and the Jesus movement was really into this book called the late great planet earth by Hal Lindsey, which was published in 1970.
My mom was super into that. Okay. I
Krispin: did not know that was a Jesus people connection
DL: Yes. They sort of adopted it. Okay. So how Lindsey Is kind of the person who popularized the idea that the end times is coming soon. Right? And so 1970s had that, but before we get to all that, we have to kind of back up.
And we have to talk about somebody named John. [00:06:00] Nelson Darby and he is basically the father of what they call dispensationalism. Which,
Krispin: dispensationalism, I do remember that from Bible college being talked about often.
DL: that is also I remember. So Krispin and I met at a Bible college here in Portland, Oregon called Multnomah Bible College and I remember being taught a lot about dispensationalism and in fact I sent you a document if you want to look at it Krispin.
Krispin: open it now.
DL: any of these images
Krispin: Oh, let's see. Uh huh. I like that you made a little document.
DL: the one I remember, the seven dispensations
Krispin: yeah. Mm hmm. The, the top one also looks fairly familiar, but yes, definitely.
DL: that one. Okay, so, Krispin, what do you remember about dispensationalism as taught at our podunk little bible college?
Krispin: Basically, part of it was that, um, Israel, [00:07:00] the way that it was described to me, Israel really screwed up and they, uh, forsook the blessing of God. To be the chosen people and therefore it was bestowed on the church. I like that. I fit so many religious words into that right but I remember being like that is really messed up that god is like I I offer these assurances over and over in throughout the Hebrew bible that you know I will never forsake you and then it's like just kidding you screwed up so bad that I am You know giving this to the church now
DL: Yeah, I mean, trigger warnings galore is, uh, dispensationalism at its core is so deeply anti-Semitic. I don't think we've even wrapped our heads around but that's what I want to talk about today.
Krispin: Uh huh
DL: Uh, because modern day Christian Zionists believe that they are very pro the Jewish [00:08:00]people, or at least right now, they're, they're the ones that are supposedly very upset about antisemitism like happening on college campuses, but really they're upset about people being pro Palestine.
So, because at their core, Christian Zionists believe that all Jewish people who do not convert to Christianity will be the ones to experience all of God's wrath for.
Krispin: right you slow that slow that down for a
DL: Oh, I will go back to that. Don't worry. I'm just, I'm just previewing. Okay, so Darby was this guy and he's sort of interesting like he became a curate in Ireland and he helped convert some like Roman Catholic peasants to the Church of England, but then like the head bishop guy was like, well all these converts have to now say that they'll follow the king of England and Darby was like, well, that sucks.
Like, why do they have to do that? They're Irish. And so he left like when he was 26 years old, he fell off his horse and had this like [00:09:00] horrible accident and he hit his head and I think he broke his leg. And then that's when he started getting all these revelations from God.
Krispin: So he had a traumatic brain
DL: He had a traumatic brain injury and sat down and read the Bible.
Krispin: uh huh So all
DL: of prophecy, and he was like, Oh, God's telling me all this stuff. So God told him a lot of stuff.
Krispin: So
DL: which is like
Krispin: common in evangelical circles came from this guy That fall off his horse and read the Bible.
DL: Right. And actually, there's a bit of controversy around like, where did he get this idea of Christians being raptured out before the tribulation? Because, so that's kind of what
Krispin: Mm, mm hmm.
DL: up until John Darby, right, everybody's like Christians will be raptured at the exact same time that Jesus comes back for a second coming, right?
And then, of course, there's all this stuff about the tribulation and the end times and the last apocalyptic battle, but it's unclear, like, where did this idea come [00:10:00] that the Christians are going to be taken up out of the world and then ….it's gonna sound so bad… it's going to be the Jewish people who are left in Israel to kind of, like, receive the tribulations of the end times.
and die. So that's actually where the word tribulation comes from because I heard that growing up the tribulation is like the great suffering and all of that and that's about it being on the Jewish people. Okay?
Krispin: I did not know
DL: that, isn't that upsetting? So, um, Actually, here's another weird aside. I found some great articles kind of unpacking the antisemitism in John Darby's beliefs and what has happened in Christian publishing, you know, in the last hundred years, especially around these ideas by this guy, Hank Hanegraaff, is that how you say his name?
Sure. He was known as the Bible Answer Man, which I didn't grow up with him, but I think a lot of evangelicals did. Well, he actually left evangelicalism, converted to
Krispin: Eastern Orthodoxy,
DL: Eastern Orthodoxy,
Krispin: I just know because you told me.
DL: but he [00:11:00] actually has some great articles that we'll link at our show notes. And he basically is like, Darby's whole consensus, his whole, what dispensationalism can be kind of boiled down to because there's seven different dispensations and Christians make it really complicated.
But this is actually what he said. He said, God has, had two distinct peoples with two distinct plans and two distinct destinies. Only one of those peoples, the Jews, would suffer tribulation. The other, the church, would be removed from the world in secret coming seven years prior to the second coming of Christ.
So that's just the baseline of how you can say this is what dispensationalism is. There's two groups of chosen people by the only one true God.
Krispin: Mm hmm.
DL: of them is not going to be around for the apocalypse and will be privileged and prioritized and saved for all eternity. The other is not. [00:12:00] Well, I mean, what do you think of this, Krispin?
Is that what you got at our Bible college? Is that what they said dispensationalism was? No. No! No! Well,
Krispin: it really was just like a, it, it, I would say it just didn't focus on the Jewish people at all. It just was sort of, in a sense, sort of like, oh, well, the Jewish people, like we're carrying on their legacy.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: Without recognizing that, that the Jewish people continued to exist.
DL: Yeah, so I think what's interesting is for us, being like, 18, 19 year olds at a Bible college, that actually dispensationalist
Krispin: Mm-Hmm.
DL: if you want to tell the folks listening, Krispin, What were all the theology books we were required to read? Where did they all come from?
Krispin: Dallas Theological Seminary.
DL: Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas is basically the premier dispensationalist group.
And so John Darby, the [00:13:00] reason all this got popular is because, um, well, okay, I got to go back. It might not just be him falling off of his horse and bonking his head because four years later he went to this sort of. Um, like Bible conference and he heard this guy speak and the guy was talking about this teenager named Margaret McDonald who went into a two hour trance at one of his revival meetings because he was like, one of the signs, well, the second great awakening was happening and they were like, this is one of the signs that the end times is going to happen is all the gifts of the spirit are going to come back.
And so all these people started speaking in tongues and offering prophetic utterances. Well, this teenager went into this two hour trance and she was like end times things are happening, you know, all the things we've heard in prophecies, but she was like, but God's going to rapture his church like Jesus is going to rapture his church before the tribulation actually happens.
And so either John Darby had this idea when he fell off his horse, [00:14:00] or you heard it four years later from a teenager and was like, I like that. And then he started like incorporating that. So either way. Right. Uh huh.
Krispin: And it just takes off, right? It just takes one person to hear one teenager, or one story of a teenager, and then they publish a book.
DL: Yeah. And so basically how it got popular in America was in the early, like 1900s. His work and his sort of understanding of the book of Revelation and his idea of these dispensations of God, you know, with the obviously prioritizing Christians way above Jewish people, all of that was put into like the Schofield Study Bible, which became a very, very popular Bible in the United States in the early 1900s.
And so that's kind of how it just sort of disseminated [00:15:00] throughout the culture now when looking at the history the next big thing that happens is not only were all these like Fundamentalist Christians reading these these study Bibles with Darby's dispensationalist beliefs then in 1970 is when we get back to the late great planet earth, okay So how Lindsey was this like Southern California guy a campus crusade for Christ guy?
And he was really impacted by Basically, you know, the creation of the nation state of Israel in 1948, which anybody who loves dispensationalism, who loves Darby, who was a fundamentalist, was so into the creation of the nation state of Israel because they They believed that that legitimized all their beliefs, right?
They were like, this proves Darby was right. This proves everything because a part of these beliefs are It's so hard to say this because it's hard. It's just hard. Okay, so this is [00:16:00] what dispensationalism believes Again, this is Hank Hanegraaff kind of like summing it up So it's like he's saying like in the 21st century Christian beliefs had changed, right?
And, and now it says that, uh, In
Krispin: In the 20th
DL: In the 21st. So, like, in this century, in this, well, the century we were born in, right? Due in part to the late great planet Earth and the Left Behind novels, right? People are convinced that Jesus will come back, secretly and silently, to rapture his church.
Not long after the church's glorious rapture, however, A multitude of Jews who have been systematically herded back into Palestine will be slaughtered in a bloodbath vastly exceeding the horrors of the Holocaust. So, I think what we heard at our Bible college is like, a lot of people believe the creation of Israel in 1948, right?
Just like, okay. Jewish people from around the world are coming back to the holy land. They are going to take over the land. They are going to make [00:17:00] Jerusalem the place. And like, basically all Jewish people in the world will find their way back there. What we weren't told as explicitly in our Bible college is like, and then Christians will be raptured the heck out of the world, which is getting worse and worse and more and more bloody and more and more violent.
And the Jewish people who are all congregated in Israel. Like, the vast majority of them will be killed in this epic bloody battle. Uh, maybe 144, 000 of them will convert to Christianity and then be saved, uh, for eternity. But
Krispin: Like, saved for eternity, not from the current suffering. And you, you said, sorry if I'm getting ahead, but you said that there were people even sort of calculating about, like, how much blood would be
DL: You don't want to go down the rabbit hole of Christians Christian Zionists who are into this theology because they, yeah, they go into the book of Revelation and then they calculate like it talks about these rivers of blood throughout, you know, flowing through the lands [00:18:00] of Israel and they're like, and this means this is how many Jewish and Arab people will die and their blood will be running.
And Christians are super into this because they're like, well, it's not me. It's not gonna happen to me. You know, God's coming for me before all this happens. So I think it's just such a sobering and such a disturbing and such a violent. View of the world that, you know, the way I characterize it is like people like my mom and how Lindsey and John Darby, they've basically been dreaming of genocide in front of all of us over and over and over again, right?
Without being called out for it. And so that's kind of what I want to do here
Krispin: Mm hmm.
DL: that people like how Lindsey had no problem with saying, yeah, yeah. What's coming for Jewish people is going to be way worse than the Holocaust. Um, and this is from God. It's not us. You know, it's just God.
Like, I don't know. It's not my deal. Okay. Um, I don't know if you want me to kind [00:19:00] of go into all of like the anti Semitism of dispensationalism at this point. So people who liked this kind of thing, which again was just sort of the bread and butter of conservative Christianity in the United States and in England, right?
People who like dispensationalism, they tend to like other really anti Semitic texts, like, um, Oh no, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which I'm not going to get into, which is like this horrific conspiracy theory that, you know, still proliferates on the internet today, right? But places like Moody Bible Institute, Dow's Theological Seminary, they loved that book.
They, you know, they praised it, all this stuff. Um, I can't, I can't, like, I don't want to say all this stuff, okay? But I just want to make it clear that dispensational Christians, evangelical Christians, they basically view Jewish people not just as pawns in God's, like, great genocidal plan, but they view them [00:20:00] as people, like, inherently deserving of God's wrath and of total annihilation.
And to be clear, they think that about, like, Palestinians and Arabs as well. There's no
Krispin: Is that because, maybe you don't know this, but Is it because they, in their mind, Jewish people rejected God and rejected Jesus. Yeah. Okay. And so there's this element of like, it's worse than like someone who had never
DL: like,
Krispin: into contact with Yahweh.
DL: contact with God. Hal Lindsey wrote this book partly because of the creation of the state of Israel plus this huge, this war that had happened in 1967.
Krispin: Mm-Hmm?
DL: And so he's like, it's all happening guys. It's all happening. Um, here's something he said about, I'm sorry, I, I'm not laughing. I'm [00:21:00] just like so horrified. Okay. But Hal Lindsey told people. Other Christians, like, not long after their glorious rapture, a numberless multitude of Jews would be slaughtered in a bloodbath that would exceed the horrors of the Holocaust, and he went on to predict that the brutality of the beast, you know, the Antichrist, would make the Nazi butchers look like Girl Scouts weaving a daisy chain. It's not him saying that! It's not him wishing that!
Krispin: Mm-Hmm. . It's just God. Mm-Hmm. . It's just God.
DL: Okay? So Hal Lindsey, this is like where he's coming from with his book, um, The Late Great Planet Earth. Was supposed to be him just like unpacking biblical prophecy being like, Hey guys, it's going to happen in five years.
Basically the end of the world is coming like in five years. Right. It was really popular. So then it got. Picked up by a non christian publisher, and they started selling it in the science fiction section of bookstores and it became like a bestseller like a New York Times bestseller because everybody in the 70s is like what's going on and like [00:22:00] things are getting wild and so conservative Christians loved it like hippy dippy Christians loved it like people who were just interested in the new age and Tarot and all these things were interested in it and the New York Times ended up calling it the book of the 1970s Like the best selling book of that entire decade.
I
Krispin: not know that. I thought it was like niche, like, yeah, Christians
DL: So if you have a boomer in your life, I mean, there's a good chance they read this book, right? My mom was into it. And that, I believe, shaped sort of the trajectory of her life and therefore mine. Because she ended up homeschooling me and my two sisters because of fears of the liberals and because the world was ending anyway, she needed to make sure we were Christians.
And she just Was obsessed with the end of the world happening. Which is funny, since the late great planet Earth was published in 1970, Did the world end in 5 years? No,
Krispin: I was going to ask what happened after five years.
DL: But the thing about these Christians, something always comes up and they're like, I wasn't [00:23:00] wrong. I just didn't have all the information.
And so now really the countdown
Krispin: Re so it's like recalculating, recalculating.
DL: actually there's websites still up to this day. I remember when the internet first came into my home, my mom was on all these sites and there's these sites called Rapture Ready. Okay. I'm going to Google right now, raptureready.
com. How close do we think we are? To the end times. I want you to guess before I click on it.
Krispin: Okay, uh, well, I mean, currently, I want to say within a year. Is that? Yes.
DL: well, I'm gonna tell you. Sometimes these people are slippery. You know, they're like, I can't say.
Krispin: Mm hmm.
DL: Oh! We're two minutes away.
Two minutes away. The hour is 2358. At 2400, the world is ending. I don't know what that means, but that's what it says. We're nearing midnight. We're nearing midnight. That's a
Krispin: a non moving image.
DL: bet it's always two minutes to
Krispin: I do.
DL: know what I mean?[00:24:00]
Krispin: Wow,
DL: I'm sure it was two minutes to midnight in the early 19, 1990s when my mom was really obsessed with that.
You know, this is going to
Krispin: definitely was two minutes to midnight, um, in 1999 at the end of the
DL: Well, speaking of 1999 and Y2K, which again, my mom was a huge believer in and it turned, you know,
Krispin: Mm hmm.
DL: maybe I shouldn't trust her. I'm starting to wonder, um, about that.
Krispin: I just think God wouldn't be that obvious.
DL: But what's funny, what's funny is humans do like to think about things like the end of a millennia. And so even in the 1970s, they were like, what's going to happen in 2000
Krispin: Mm.
DL: they were pretty pessimistic. That's the other thing. John Darby Nelson was very pessimistic and that all fits into this, right?
Everybody thinks the world's gonna get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. Christians will be raptured out. Huge bloodbath. It all ends. Okay, so back to 1999. By 1999, 35 million copies of the late great planet Earth have been sold. So it continues to sell. It [00:25:00] continued to sell, okay, all the
Krispin: Uh huh.
DL: Here's something. Publishers Weekly
Krispin: Okay.
DL: this, like, to my mind, sort of scathing, like, write up about Hal Lindsey, right?
Krispin: Uh huh.
DL: In 1977. So they said, Hal Lindsey is an advent and apocalypse evangelist who sports a Porsche racing jacket and tools around Los Angeles and a Mercedes 450 Si. And even though his best selling books of Bible prophecy warn that the end is near, Lindsey maintains a suite of offices in a posh Santa Monica high rise for the personal management firm that sinks his royalties into long term real estate investments.
Krispin: So the
DL: He's a grifter! He's just a grifter! He sunk all of his royalties into long term real estate investments.
Krispin: Hey, I mean, I, I'm, he's just covering all his bases. He's like, either I get raptured or I retire.
DL: Love it. [00:26:00] I love that this is the person who scared my mom shitless, and um, scared a lot of other people shitless, right?
And I think that's just kind of what the point was, in a way, because when you're scared, you're a lot easier to control. When you're scared, you, you know, work hard to maintain what you think will keep you safe, and, and Anyway, so, there's all that.
Krispin: I mean, what I'm really wondering is, and I don't think you have the answer to this, but how much is this still active? And then the other part is like, how much is this floating in the water? Like, you know, obviously this was so popular in the seventies. Um, I feel like the left behind craze has sort of passed.
DL: Passed?
Krispin: I, that's, that's my vibe. But like, maybe I'm just not in those circles. Like, so listeners, please let us know. Where are things? What are you hearing from your boomer parents? Like, how deep is this? But I also want to say, like, I am sure that it is still [00:27:00] in the water of evangelicalism.
DL: I think, like, if I asked my mom about the late Great Planet Earth, she'd be like, Oh, it's just about prophecies about the end of the world.
She wouldn't say, Oh, it's about all the Jewish people are going to die a bloody death while the Christians get the blessings of God, you know, but that's totally a part of it. And what's also weird is about evangelical Christians. White Evangelical Christians, there's like this huge also movement of like appropriating Jewish culture I don't know if you went to like a Passover Seder ever.
I I went to multiple ones. I learned how to dance
Krispin: So
DL: kind of even more disturbing to think about how, you know, Christians even in our church services, especially like Pentecostal ones who believe in end times stuff, like they use the chauffeur horns, like they take all these elements of Jewish culture while believing in their core that Jewish people are destined to die, like horrific, violent deaths, um, in the state of [00:28:00] Israel.
Okay. So like, that's another important thing. Like all Jewish people should, you Eventually move back to Israel where they will, the majority of them will be killed.
Krispin: So it's not about the establishment and protection. A place where Jewish people are safe. No, you were so upset. You just, I just, this is what I like about our new setup. I just saw you
DL: Bonk! I saw
Krispin: I saw you hit your glasses on the microphone.
DL: I just saw it's so upsetting
Krispin: Uhhuh. Mm-Hmm.
DL: so what I think about for one thing right Jewish people are not a monolith American Christians I guess are not a monolith but at the same time there are elements of like Western American White centric Christianity, where this theology truly is baked into it, okay?
So like, not all Jewish people are Zionists, okay? Not all Christians are Zionists. But if you don't take the time to actually think through like, What, [00:29:00] you know, what is this all about? I think you're probably going to just sort of be on the Zionist side of things.
Krispin: Mm-Hmm.
DL: And it's important to say, For Christian Zionists, I'm not talking about Jewish Zionists here.
For Christian Zionists, it is at its core a genocidal belief. Um, not
Krispin: masquerading as the opposite in a sense. Yeah.
DL: sense. And they it's truly about this will usher in the end times. And so when I think about like People who are in some of our highest forms of governance, right, who are evangelical Christians, who are pro supporting Israel at whatever cost, like, they think this is ushering in the end of the world.
And those are the people in charge of our government, and they think the end is coming soon, okay? Uh, so I just think maybe those people shouldn't be, um, the ones Leading us all. Okay, are we ready to talk about Left Behind? Yes! I always said I was never going to talk about Left Behind on this podcast.
Right, do you want to explain why? You explain why! Because you had childhood religious trauma.[00:30:00]
Krispin: around the end times.
DL: I don't really like talking about it. Right. Because it was so impactful
Krispin: is really sad and tragic. So I will just throw that out
DL: Okay, I'm going to sum it up. Okay, so my mom was obsessed with the end times.
My mom probably was a very depressed person. Um, so she told me, right, that I, that Antichrist was going to come before I was 16 and that she took me on to these prophetic conferences. Everybody always prophesied I would die a martyr before 16. I believed it. I was undiagnosed autistic. The only people in my life were charismatic Christians who believed in this stuff.
They were all very excited about Jesus coming
Krispin: mean, imagine, imagine this. This is like you being a middle schooler
DL: or younger.
Krispin: or younger, right?
DL: Cause it kind of started when I was eight,
Krispin: Wow.
DL: obsession. And so my two sisters were sort of like, I don't think this is real. I think our mom's kind of crazy.
And I, I was not like that. I was like, mom. Mom says God talks to her and I believe her. I had to believe her. She's my caregiver. Okay, and so I had no sense of [00:31:00] my future. I had no sense. And this continued on, right? Because I was a junior in high school when Y2K happened and my mom believed that. And so I didn't apply to any colleges.
I didn't get my driver's license. And so I was living in this panicked state of the end times. Well, the adults around me were like, Yay!
Krispin: yeee! I don't
DL: I don't want to be alive anymore. So I'm so excited. The end is coming. Um, I was not like that. So it was basically I don't know. I don't know what a similar experience would be for people like, you know, there's that thing when parents get really into like their kid having an illness
Krispin: mom, no, that's what a script doesn't
DL: maybe that's sort of similar to how I was raised.
But my mom, you know, was sort of into the left behind books. Although this all came kind of later, like I'd already lived through all this in my mind for years and years and years at this point. But I did read the left behind books for kids, which is disturbing that they made these into books
Krispin: Yeah. Uh huh. Um. It's all
DL: yeah, people in my world were like, yeah, this is all true. Like, this
Krispin: true. Mm
DL: true. This is not just fiction. This [00:32:00] is like real theology. What was your sense of the left behind books?
Krispin: Uh, I remember being like, Oh, this is true. This is good. Actually, I remember being really terrified. Um, really scared that I was gonna get left behind. And then also having people in my life be like, Well, that's not really true theology.
So, I had a little bit of fear. Connection to reality if we want to call that call it that so
DL: Yeah, and I think, again, what people kind of miss out on, because, right, Nicolas Cage was in.
Krispin: Right, I forgot
DL: the main, the main left behind. I thought
Krispin: thought it was just kurt cameron
DL: there was a Nicolas Cage version. Chad Michael Murray. So this was, like, extremely popular. I don't even know how many millions of copies these books sold. They sold a lot, okay? Do you want to know what Tim LaHaye
Krispin: Who was a therapist tim lay was a marriage
DL: What does Tim LaHaye think about Jewish people?
Krispin: Do I want to
DL: what do they say happens to Jewish people at the end of that [00:33:00] 14 book series or however many books it is? Do you want to know? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Tim LaHaye, doctor,
Krispin: Mm-Hmm.
DL: psychologist, Tim LaHaye uses biblical monikers such as the Day of Israel's Calamity to codify what he eerily described as the Antichrist's final solution to the Jewish problem.
Krispin: he used those words. Yeah.
DL: Like Lindsey, he, how Lindsey, he is convinced that this time of national suffering for Jews will be far worse than the Spanish Inquisition of the 16th century or even the Holocaust of Adolf Hitler in the 20th century, okay? According to Lahaye, the time of Jewish tribulation will be ni A nightmarish reality beyond imagination.
Take the horror of every war since time began, throw in every natural disaster in recorded history, and cast off all restraints, so that the unspeakable cruelty and hatred and injustice of man toward his fellow man can fully mature and compress all that into a period of seven years. Even if you could imagine such a horror, it wouldn't approach the mind boggling terror and turmoil of the Tribulation.[00:34:00]
Krispin: Wow,
DL: That's bad!
Krispin: Uhhuh.
DL: Again, in his views on Christians, out!
Krispin: right? And
DL: And it will be the Jewish people who receive the brunt of it.
Krispin: And this is the, this is the ideology that is running this 14 book series that is selling millions of copies
DL: And then there's also some horrid stuff in there about like, um, if Jewish people want to, you know, Get out of some of this suffering or be in the millennia, right?
They have to become Christians, right?
Krispin: Mhm.
DL: There's here's a here's something in one of the books one of the Levine books called Armageddon the cosmic battle for the ages Okay, one person a person is talking to a Jewish person in the book It says when Jewish people such as yourself come to see that Jesus is your long sought Messiah You are not converting from one religion to another no matter what anyone tells you.
Okay, you have found your Messiah. That is all So this is not about [00:35:00] converting Jewish people. It's like, you're just doing what you were supposed to do all along. And this is how Christians view themselves. And this is how Christians view Jewish people as a whole
Krispin: Mhm. Mhm.
DL: apocalyptic theology.
So what does that mean for today, Krispin? What does that mean for today? Well Uh, what is your sense of what, uh, white evangelicals in particular think about the conflict happening between Israel and Palestine right now? I say conflict, that's not how I view it.
Krispin: Right. Yeah. We know. I mean, yeah. When I say we know, I'm like, yeah, we like it. It is so clear to so many people that this is a genocide. Yeah. And, um, I, I,
DL: how does this fit into Why evangelicals?
Krispin: right. Well, it, it's not about the [00:36:00] experience of these particular people, it's about these cosmic political events. Right. And that's all that matters.
DL: Yeah. And so actually like the, the disputes over the land. in Palestine are extremely important to Christian Zionists. Now, I've been quoting a lot from Hank Hanegraaff, and again, I really recommend his kind of writings about this. And there's a bunch of, like, sort of old white dudes who have been writing and saying this stuff is bad, Christian Zionism is, like, bad for everybody, and it's not biblical, it comes from John Darby and all these people that are sort of extra biblical ideas.
And so there's this really interesting article that was published in 2007, um, by this guy named Charles Veenstra. And he's, you know, he's a conservative Christian, but he kind of goes through how things like the Left Behind novels really have popularized this idea of Christian Zionism for so many people in America and how that impacts our politics.
Um, so I [00:37:00] just want to say, Here are the five, like, core tenets of Christian Zionism that he writes about. And this comes from a guy named Gary Burge. Okay, one is about the covenant, right? God does have this covenant with Israel, right? Um, and then the church, God has always, like, had a plan of redemption for Israel.
Yet, when Israel failed to follow Jesus, the church was born as an afterthought. Parentheses, okay? So we're the new chosen people. It wasn't supposed to be like that, but it's kind of
Krispin: Mm-Hmm.
DL: The Jewish people's fault. Okay. Number three is the blessing of modern Israel. And so this is what Christian Zionists believe.
We must take Genesis 12. 3 literally and apply it to modern Israel. I'm going to say Genesis 12. 3. You tell me if you heard this growing up, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. Did you grow up hearing that? Yes. Oh. My. God. All the time. Uh huh. So that's the, that's the, like, one of the main backbones of Christian Zionism.
Krispin: right. Okay. Uhhuh.
DL: huh. We, the church, need to [00:38:00] uphold that so we will be blessed by God. So we take that to mean America and we take that to mean the state of Israel. Okay? And we curse those who curse you, which means we are enemies
Krispin: Enemies with those who are your political enemies.
DL: especially Arab nations. Okay?
Uh
Krispin: Uh huh.
DL: Uh, so to fail to bless Israel will result in divine judgment and by that they mean the nation state of Israel. Okay? And then the fourth tenet is prophecy. The prophetic books of the Bible are describing events of today and not just events of history. Okay. And then modern Israel and eschatology.
The modern state of Israel is a catalyst for the prophetic countdown. If these are the last days, then we should expect an unraveling of civilization, the rise of evil, the loss of international peace and equilibrium, a coming Antichrist and tests of faithfulness to Israel. Above all, political alignments today will, will determine our position on the fateful day of Armageddon.
Okay? Since the crisis of 9 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has been easy to persuade the public that history is unraveling [00:39:00] precisely as dispensationalism predicted. Now, obviously we've seen a huge uptick of that in the Trump years, because I don't know if you remember, Christian Zionists were super into getting, uh, like, the embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, so that happened.
But now, obviously, this war That Israel's waging on Gaza and like even sort of the international response to it. Christians in America are viewing this. This is all like, this proves everything to them, right? These are the last days. So if you have someone in your life who maybe read the late Great Planet Earth or left behind, they might be truly thinking we are in the last days right now.
Okay? The sad thing is, and the thing I feel like we just have to camp out over and over and over again, And this is what this guy, uh, Charles Beanstra says. He says,
Krispin: Hmm.
DL: Christian Zionists, are more concerned with Israel claiming the land than they are that Jews become converted to Christ. Okay? So some people [00:40:00] will be like, Well, we care about Israel, we care about Jewish people, and we care that, you know, the original chosen people become grafted back into it. But if you actually look at the theology and you look at how that plays out politically, it doesn't matter. People do not care about Jews, about Jewish people converting to Christianity, being saved.
All they care about is that Jewish people claim Israel and do not give up a square inch of it to anybody else, because if there's a two state solution in Palestine that undermines all of dispensationism, all of end times theology. And so, Christian Zionists have been the most intense people to be against, like, a two state solution.
Okay? And it's kind of, I mean, I can't go into all the history of how, at every turn, they have tried to say, like, no, we cannot support this. And it's people like Gary Bauer, John [00:41:00] Hadji, is that how you say it? Okay, um, Jerry Falwell, you know, all these people, right? So Well, and it just, it fits, too, with hell and heaven theology, of like,
Krispin: Christians are very accustomed to being like, yeah, there are huge groups of people that are going to suffer, and that's just the way it is because that's the way God works. And so, I don't know, just as you're talking, I'm like, oh yeah, this, it just all makes sense, like, it just fits with the philosophy.
DL: Okay. So Gary Bauer in, in 2003 said at this like big conference, he said, we believe God owns the land and he has deeded it to the Jewish people, a deed that cannot be canceled today and cannot be amended.
This God has spoken clearly. Um, then he says, I will bless those who bless you. Okay. Uh, and again, in 2003, a group of 24 prominent Christian Zionists, a letter to the president, and this is what it said, Mr. President, it would be morally reprehensible for the United [00:42:00] States to be even handed between democratic Israel, a reliable friend and ally that shares our values and the terrorist infested Palestinian infrastructure that refuses to accept the right of Israel to exist at all.
Okay. Uh, Pat Robertson called the establishment of a Palestinian state, Satan's plan, okay? Um, and Robertson went on to praise Israel, saying, the Zionist state was a part of God's plan for the end of time and a precedent to the second advent of Jesus Christ. Okay, so all these what is
Krispin: wild, before you go more, go further, is This, I mean, it obviously sounds like religious conspiracy stuff, so what's so distressing is that this has played such a large hand in U. S. international policy. Mhm.
DL: these people, so like people like Pat Robinson, right? He had his show on the 700 Club. Um, all these groups started really organizing in the past [00:43:00] several decades, right? They're well funded, well organized. There's tens of millions of people who identify as Christian Zionists in the United States.
More so than there are, like, Jewish people. Right in America, and the primary aims of these groups was like lobbying the American government to support Israel and providing financial support for I'm quoting here for the settlers in the occupied territories in the West Bank and including money to pay for Jews to immigrate to Israel.
Okay. And this is in 2007, this guy writing this said, uh, cursory examination of websites reveal that many sample letters to government officials, as well as appeals for funds for settlers. They also sponsor many trips to Israel. Okay. Ooh, I just think like thinking about all the different layers of this, like not only are Christian Zionists advocating for the U.
S. to fund Israel, but they want them to fund, like, having Jewish people move back to Israel. They have resisted [00:44:00] the two state solution. If you're wondering, like, why is it so complicated in the Middle East? Why is there no two state solution? Well, I have the answer for you. It's Christian Zionists. It's American Christian Zionists who believe that the end times is imminent.
Like, this is really what is happening. And I think what I feel the saddest for is for Jewish people who want to be safe, right, have taken on as their allies, Christian Zionists, without fully understanding, like, the genocidal aims and beliefs that they have, right? They do not want all Jewish people to relocate to Israel to be safe.
Krispin: Right?
DL: They do not believe that will ever happen. They think things will get worse and worse and worse until Christians finally are raptured. And then the Jewish people are going to be left surrounded and be killed.
Krispin: which is why you, you brought something up as we were talking about this that I found really important to point out, which is, as we are looking at this conflict, we are looking at [00:45:00]casualties, we're looking at human lives, we're looking at all these equations. And they're like, yeah, it's the end times.
Of course people are going to die. So many people are going to die. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who dies. It matters that the state of Israel keeps its borders so that Jesus can come back. Which is such a different way of computing what makes a war or military action good or not.
DL: Yeah, and so as a kid raised with this theology, I can just say the God of white evangelicals is a genocidal monster. And I reject it fully. It ruined my mom's life and mental health. Ruin my life in a lot of ways.
It's literally ruining people's lives right this second. And I don't think we can talk about this enough. And so the next two episodes, we're going to be talking about these specific Christian romance novels that try to popularize this kind of thinking for white women, right. Who read, who read books in the United States and, um.
I don't know, [00:46:00] get them to identify with this theology in a new way. So, I don't know, Krispin, my tummy hurts just after talking about all this. Um, But if you were raised white evangelical like us, this kind of theology and this kind of view of the world is, is in there. And it's time to sort of take a good hard look at what it is.
I'm grateful to the Christians who have been calling out Christian Zionism and, you know, they use arguments like it's not actually biblical and it's not. I just. That's not my vibe anymore. It's there's some of this shit in the bible. Does that make sense? Like there are parts of the new testament that seem very anti semitic to me
Krispin: yes. Well, I mean, that is I'm just going to throw this in here because there's still a little bit of Bible theology nerd in me. But the, the new perspective on Paul folks, this is their thing, is like, we, we can't It basically, I think it is anti dispensationalist. Basically they're saying like.[00:47:00]
The idea that, uh, that God's covenant with Israel and all of God's promises are nil does not make sense. So we need to somehow make sense of Christianity in a way that also honors the experience of the Jewish people with Yahweh. Which I think is, is great.
DL: Yeah. The one thing that, about this last article that I was talking about, um, this guy's really big onto like the listening project. Like how can we tell if people are listening or not? And he's basically like, we can tell that Christian Zionists are not good at listening because they ignore three groups of people, right?
Over and over and over again. One of the groups of people they ignore. are non Zionist Jewish people, which there's a lot of Jewish folks around the world who are not Zionists. Okay. Christian Zionists ignore them completely. Uh, another group they ignore are Christians in Palestine. Palestinians in general, I think we all know that.
Krispin: hmm. Mm
DL: Muslims. Of course, they're going to ignore Muslims, but they ignore Christian Palestinians and they always have. Okay. The third group that they ignore are non [00:48:00] Zionists. Christians. And so, you know, that's who you and I used to be. And I just think this is like a good framework. If you have friends and family members who are a part of this, they're in a cult.
They're in a genocidal end times cult and they're not going to listen to you. And it's time to do what you can. To minimize the violence of those beliefs and those toxic ways of being and move on. And I would say start putting your energy into people who have a much nicer view of the world. What's coming, uh, queer communities, you know, people of color, like they're focused on survival and survival for all.
And, and that's who I want to partner with going forward and I'm done. I'm done trying to talk to these groups that have shown over and over again that they do not listen. They don't listen, and if they aren't going to listen to these really important groups of people, especially during a genocide, you know, I think we got to let them be miserable old people who believe the end of the world is coming.
Okay, I don't know. That's just my thought. And I'm determined, you know, the best thing I can do, I think, to resist Christian Zionism and [00:49:00] just the trauma of growing up with the End Times mom is to commit to live, is to live this life. And to be here every day and to commit to doing less harm and to seeing everybody in the world flourish.
I know that seems like really out there, but that's how I'm going to do it, right? That's going to be my rebellion is to live and to actually envision a future that there's less for.
Krispin: hmm.
DL: apocalypse, as it were. So that's kind of what I got.
Krispin: Yeah, I'm just so glad that you took the time to break all of this down. There are so many things here that I was sort of exposed to in some ways, but like, yeah, kind of showing what was going on behind the scenes and how that's impacting now I think is so important. I'm so glad that we're setting this up because I'm excited for your conversations with other folks that are coming up as well.
I just think that this was a really good sort of primer on like how did we get here and how did White Evangelicalism get here?
DL: And what's the root of the deeply anti Semitic genocidal [00:50:00] beliefs of, uh, Christian Zionists. So, thanks for listening, everyone! I know this is an intense one. Get ready for some romance books!
Krispin: You, you hit play expecting us to talk about the good place and instead
DL: Whoops!
Krispin: we are talking about antisemitic
DL: A dude who fell off his horse and changed global politics forever.
Krispin: Well, welcome to 2024, y'all. Welcome to 2024.
DL: sums it up. Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon. You can always support us on Patreon. If you appreciate the work that we're doing, you can follow me at my newsletter.
Healing is my special interest. And Christmas, we're going on blogs. You got blogs going.
Krispin: Yep, and you can find us on Instagram as well. Take care, y'all.[00:51:00]
